ROAD TRIP RESEARCH!

Summertime sightseeing! Sunday afternoon drives! Weekend jaunts! It’s the perfect time of the year for combining a little R&R with your research if you’re within driving distance of your current or future books’ setting.
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After an intense and exhausting winter of non-stop writing, day job deadlines, and snow shoveling---and having shipped off my second book to my editor before launching immediately into building the foundation for book #3---I knew I needed a break. What better way than to enjoy a 36-hour mini-vacation doing in-depth research? So I recruited my sister and off we went to the Eastern Mogollon Rim-White Mountain area of northern Arizona for a refresher on the setting of my fictional Canyon Springs stories.
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I’d been to this area before, so already had maps. I really like the “Benchmark” brand as it splits states into regions so you get great detail (Arizona is divided into 4 individual maps—so the whole state costs you $7 X 4 if you want them all). It not only shows towns and highways, but is also a topical map visually illustrating geographic details as well as marking elevations, lakes, creeks, washes, unpaved roads, etc. Check out Barnes & Noble’s map section for Benchmark maps of your own setting’s area.
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So maps in hand, I was off to the internet to do some exploring!
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- Wikipedia.org – fabulous place to start for census demographics
- Local Chambers of Commerce
- Tourism & recreation, historical societies & museum sites
- Local on-line newspapers
- State & federal parks & Forest Service
- White Mountain Apache tribe
- NOAA (national weather service with great historic data)
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From these sites I branched out to local businesses, real estate, etc. There’s an incredible amount of information to be found on the web—but remember they’re most often showing you the very best they have to offer. All polished and pretty. Not necessarily “real life,” which is why in-person research can add those flavorful details and personalities you want for your story. .

For instance, although I learned on-line that one area of 5,000 souls swells to a population of 30,000 in the summer, the web didn’t tell me that many streets branching off the main ones are dirt or that seasonal residents and locals give names to their individual campsites or property even if no bigger than a lawnmower shed: Wulfe’s Lair, Gaither’s Getaway, Reinhart’s Retreat. No web site shared with me the undercurrent of excitement as seasonal businesses reopen to cater to the summer crowd---or the relief everyone feels when the visitors go home in September! And only an in-person visit could clearly illustrate the extreme contrast in natural beauty and economic poverty on the Apache reservation.
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While cruising these web sites, I jotted down opening and closing times—although be forewarned that small towns don’t always adhere strictly to posted schedules! Web sites can also open up a world of questions both from the info they provide and from what is absent. So I wrote up my questions in a handy 5x7-inch notebook. Things like:
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- What’s the terrain like?
- what's it smell like? what specific trees? bushes? flowers?
- is there still snow on the ground? what color is the soil?
- what birds and wildlife do I see/hear? what is the architecture like?
- what businesses line the streets? how do people earn a living?
- what endangers the area besides snowstorms and fire?
- what’s on people's porches & decks? In yards?
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- what are people wearing? drive? can you easily tell locals apart from out-of-towners?
- is there an ethnic/racial mix? are there any accents?
- what are the “issues” this region faces? What conflicts are common?
- what is the “feel” of the area? The “energy” ?
- what am I seeing/feeling in person that I DIDN'T expect to see/feel?
- what am I NOT seeing/feeling in person that I DID expect to see/feel?
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Since my Steeple Hill Love Inspired’s Canyon Springs community is fictional and not based on any single real town, I was looking for “flavor” rather than specifics such as “Restaurant X is on Pinetree Road” or “it takes fifteen minutes to walk from Point A to Point B.” If you’re using an existing town in your story and intend to call it by its real name, you must be careful to get the details right or you’ll hear from readers when you make a boo-boo! Picking up a city map and documenting research on it will be critical.
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I was on a mini-vacation to soak up the region, the flavor of the communities in this mountainous, off-the-beaten-path area of the state. But regardless of fictional or non-fictional setting, however, consider doing a few of these on your research road trip:
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- Tour museums and historical homes.
- Tour businesses (furniture making? chainsaw wood carving? food specialties?)
- Attend fairs and festivals (sheep shearing anyone?)
- Get out of that car and walk. Unless it’s not safe, include side streets and residential neighborhoods, not just main thoroughfares. Details you’d have otherwise missed jump out during a stroll.
- Periodically jot down 1-word/1-line impressions since the colorful details can be too easily forgotten by day's end. Write down specifics, not just generalities.

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- Stop by the Chamber of Commerce for maps, guide books, real estate guides.
- Chat with waitresses and cashiers--learn where the tourist hot spots are -- and where locals prefer to hang out and what they do for fun.
- Keep your eyes open for flyers regarding special events.
- Turn on the radio and TV to find out what locals are hearing & watching.
- Open up the yellow pages in your hotel room; use your camera’s macro lens to take close-ups of particularly interesting ads.
- Pick up illustrated flora & fauna guide books of the area.

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- For the most part keep away from "generic" eateries that you find on every street corner across America. (We've become WAY too homogenized in this country.) Try local specialties so you can describe them for your readers. Pick up those mini-menus at restaurant cashier counters or photograph menus posted outside. Yellow pages often feature menus, too.

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- Check out the local paper. Small towns have the most interesting news. The week I picked up a White Mountain Independent, the front page featured articles on a city council debating special event permits, a farmer’s market opening, and the local trails association doing clean-up. And how could any writer not be intrigued by “Belly Button residents raise roof over Catholic noisiness” ?
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Take extra batteries and SD cards for your digital camera and plan to take a lot of photos to jog your memory when you return home---down-the-street shots and landscapes or close-ups of unfamiliar flowers. I've found (if someone else is driving, of course!) that a digital camera set on "infinity" focus is fast enough that you can get amazing shots out the front and side windows. Maybe not framing-worthy, but seldom blurred. And don’t forget to pick up postcards of landscapes and exteriors/interiors that are difficult to photograph.
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If you’re writing historicals, keep in mind that much can happen over a 100 year period. The land that’s pasture now may have been heavily timbered until a fire forty years ago. The lake you see may have been manmade in the 1950’s. That big Victorian hotel that looks like it’s been there forever may have been built only ten years ago. So a stop at the library, newspaper or historical society to check out their archives might be a smart move.
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I had a delightfully renewing weekend and returned home with an armload of literature, a camera full of photos, and a notebook stuffed with “local color.” More than enough ideas to make my fictional community come alive for many books to come!
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Today please share with us what YOU do to make the most of a research road trip! Have you already been on one or are you planning a summer excursion to flesh out your current or future WIP? If you leave your e-mail addy, you’ll be eligible to be entered in a drawing for a $10 gift card from Barnes & Noble so you can buy one of those Benchmark maps of your own story’s area!
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Glynna
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An ACFW "Genesis" and RWA Faith, Hope & Love "Touched by Love" award winner, GLYNNA KAYE'S 2009 Steeple Hill Love Inspired DREAMING OF HOME will be followed by another story set in the same Arizona mountain community of Canyon Springs. SECOND CHANCE COURTSHIP releases February 2011!